Board Update:

KSUWildcatFan I talked with Eugene today and lost track during the list of things that were wrong with my boards!

He did say that the lamp matrix was shit, so that should point to all my weird activity.

Great recommendation. Eugene's a good dude who loves talking pinball circuitry. I'll update whenever I get them back.

Does anyone have a picture of the back side of the cpu board. Not the front the back side of it I would appreciate it thanks

She ain't much to look at, but it runs like a top. See how easy we are to work with around here, hope this helps.

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Alright, just joined the club yesterday! And inherited coolpinballdino’s sound issues...

Most of the time, When you start the first game after powering on it acts like it’s trying to play every sound in the game at the same time, full volume.

Hit the reset and it just loses all sound (just some static you can hear)

Tried reseating the ribbon cable to the speech board with no luck (only 1 side is pin connectors) will try the connectors leading to the speakers next.

Any other thought?

Thanks, and excited about going the club!

Welcome aboard.

Have you tried fiddling with the volume knob, inside the lower cabinet? Sometimes that clears up volume problems, it can behave strangely if the knob is right on the hairy edge of max or min -- and it can find its way there on its own via cabinet vibration.

So far I've just tried the super easy things.

-Messed with all speaker/sound connectors
-Volume Knob in cabinet and the mixer knob on the speech board
-Ran it through the sound test (no sound 0-7)

Haven't looked too hard into it, but anyone know a good way to check if the speech board is working properly?
Tracking down board issues is defiantly a weak point for me, so if anyone has anything should try I am all ears.

Thanks for the help.

Edit: I know I’m blowing up this thread, but more poking, If it’s worth anything. I found it makes the noise (post 3097) with or without the speech board plugged in. Just louder when it is plugged in.

I'm having a small display issue. All segments and displays are working but they are constantly flashing like a strobe. I reseated all connectors and then it worked fine for a little while so I'm assuming it's a connector issue but I've tried reseating them again and no luck this time.Does anyone know which connector I should focus on or any other insight?
Edit: I've read it may be caps on the power supply.

I've been watching Rick and Morty since playing (and enjoying) the pinball recently. Being a Space Shuttle owner, I picked up on this little tidbit last night...

In Rick and Morty, Season 2 Episode 2 'Mortynight Run', R&M visit the intergalactic arcade Blips & Chitz. In the background, you can see what looks sorta like a pinball machine -- kinda Banzai Run style. While it's obviously a fictitious machine -- and not conclusively a pinball anyway -- I did notice that you can HEAR the sound/'music' from Space Shuttle! Listen closely to the background noise in this clip from 0:13 - 0:26 --

-- you all Space Shuttle aficionados will hear it. (I don't know if this same sound was used in other video arcade games but that's definitely possible too.)

Granted, we can't conclusively say that sound is coming from that specific 'pinball machine' visible behind R&M, but still -- I can hear Space Shuttle in the audio and wanted to share!

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Quite The Keen ear Andy, I've seen that episode more than once and never picked up on that.

That episode is so awesome and now I like it even more

May be grasping at straws here trying to track down this sound issue.

Was poking around in the back box and comparing to pictures from this thread. I did notice that on the speech board. The speech chips on my board are in different spots than all the pictures I saw here. There are 3 chips and 4 holders. I have the top right open, every other picture I found in the tread had top left open. can anyone confirm? Any thoughts if this could cause issues? And if so, does anyone know if these are soldered in, or I can pop them out?

That’s for the help!

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Here's what I have.

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Attached photo of my board and it would seem that that upper left ROM is is in the wrong place. You should be able to Simply remove that chip and place it in the empty socket. No soldering. Another observation, that capacitor just below the lower right ROM may be in backwards. Compare the arrows on that to the arrows on the photo from @Misterhare. No visible arrows on mine however the crimped side of the cap is orientated to the left,same as @Misterhare.

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Moved the Rom, not change.

The capacitor arrows are pointing left, although crimped side of the capacitor seems to match.. also notice I have a 25vdc vs mrhare 16v

Thanks for the help

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Any difference in the sound test since swapping that chip?

No sir, going to try to flip the capacitor

Hope that does it. I believe that cap was just installed by my board tech wizard, Eugene.

No such luck... I thought we were on to something. Flipped the cap (not a great solder job) but still getting the same noise. And nothing during sound test.

Nothing to do with changes from today. but the Sound has changed slight since I got the machine. Almost sounds like the start of game waiting to plung noise. But it just Continues that the entire time the machines on.

Back to the drawing board... maybe I just need to send the board in and let an expert handle it.

Maybe the actual cap is shit?

Did you order new ROMs?

I also wonder if the problem could be in the main board.

1. Probably (especially now that I’ve messed with it)
2. Ordered a couple random 6810s, i read somewhere those were giving similar games sound issues. Got to figure out if those are soldered on. If so it’s above my current pay grade.
3. I’ll go with probably again haha. It makes the same noise with or without the speech board, just much quieter without.

So you got your boards back, how's your light show?

I'm sure you don't want to hear this, but I would think about flipping that cap back now. After looking at @Misterhare's photo and that other you posted where you can see it more clearly, that arrow symbol on yours points to the positive whereas his Arrow points towards the negative,so it was probably the right configuration all along.

Apinjunkie it's okay. This will be a valuable lesson for crussell to know where his limits are. . As I have had to learn!

As for me, I'm trying to put together an update. Stay tuned.

Haha no worries, guess I get to practice my soldering a little more!

Just wished some of this would have helped haha.

I completely lost track of all of my threads, having driven to Colorado to help a friend out with his own pins a few weeks ago. Hope all is well, looking forward to your update!

A few things, the sound roms are labeled U4,U5,U6 so you did right by moving the top one. The cap was correct, I've seen caps where the arrow points to positive and where it points to negative, you just have to make sure which one you have. I see you're missing at least one screw on the mpu, make sure all the screws are in place, easy to try (and fix perhaps). Does the power cord have the ground? Check for cold solder joints if that's something you're comfortable doing. Just a couple easy things to try.

Switched the cap back. Put a screw in the top left of the MPU, only one I found missing. Still all the same.

Power cable does have a ground.

Not totally sure what I’m doing looking for cold joints, but I am up for learning something new. As long as I can ruin things to easily haha.

Thanks for the help.

The update is fairly straightforward...fairly.

I got all my boards back from Eugene, popped them in and fired it up and the lamps are working perfectly! Only one shuttle value at a time.
Also, I went from only #1 display and credit display working, to 2.5 displays working.

However, gremlins do remain!
1) After a few days I was playing and something started smoking in the head. I tried to get the glass off in time to identify where, but I couldn't tell. Since then, I have not had an issue. I'm hoping it was something with the two displays that are not working, so I have unplugged those for now. I'm going to grab some Wolffpac displays at some point, but I can get by with two for now.
2) The airlock keeps opening up after a ball lock. Progression is:
Airlock closed (ball can drain)
Lock ball
Airlock opens
Launch new ball
First lane rollover switch activates and airlock closes

Eugene said go into diagnostics and check each switch individually. Might just need an adjustment. But I haven't used the diag menu yet. Have to do that with the manual nearby, right?

The work is never done, but we're mostly in good shape here.

Good news / bad news / weird on the smoking. I hate original displays so I generally dump those at the first opportunity anyway.

As for the menu..Yeah, have the manual nearby. Sys6 doesn't really nicely label what the hell you're doing so you'll need to use the manual to decipher. TBH I've never even done a switch test on mine, at any point..lol

So, random question..probably been asked a dozen times in this thread already, but alas I'm lazy...

Regarding the stock high scores, I'm just curious.. Was Shuttle originally intended to be a *five* ball game, rather than *three*? Even the Papa video (3 balls) which is very well played only hit 2.1mil.

I'm sure it's POSSIBLE to hit 3, 4, 5, E T C..with 3 balls..but holy cow do you have to hit one hell of a flow. I *know* the juiced spinner is the key to huge scores on this, so maybe that's it..just get really good at sweeping those targets and then hammer the thing..

I've never struggled so much to even come close to the bottom of the leaderboard on an 80s Williams game as I have with Shuttle. High Speed, Black Knight 2000, Taxi, Firepower II, Alien Poker..all fine as long as I have a 'good' game. Even WPC -- Demolition Man, World Cup Soccer, Terminator 2, etc -- I can put up a respectable score with a 'good' game. Shuttle seems to take an absolutely MONSTER game to hit 3 mil+. Is it really just the spinner, and that's the only way? Or were the leaderboard scores set with 5 balls in mind? The only other 80s Williams game I can recall being such a challenge to crack the leaderboard was F-14 and that is just a nasty game in general. Shuttle doesn't seem to be built in that same way, those scores just seem really high!

Sorry for what I'm sure is the reeeeeeeeepeat question, I'm apparently super lazy today.

KSUWildcatFan I'm in the same boat.. can’t get close to high score with three balls.

I've cracked 2+ a couple of times, and that's it. I'm putting mine on 5 for a bit and seeing if I like it better. On 3 I find it frustrating and I don't like feeling like it's nearing the sell pile (read: it's not) just because it makes me mad.

It could certainly be that I just suck, but when the Papa demo video looks really well played and isn't even that much higher than my highest score, it really makes me wonder. If ripping the spinner over and over and over is the only way to realistically got the leaderboard on a 3 ball game, that kind of sucks too. Jmo

Its pretty tough to get to the stock high scores on 3 ball.i hit 2,900,000 and change the other night just missing the lowest preset.

Okay so I'll chime in with my opinion and it's just that an opinion. In the 80s Williams wasn't designing pinball machines for home use, three balls was the industry standard so you would keep sinking quarters in to make more for the operator. If you have the game now, in your home, there's no shame in setting it to five balls. Longer play Times, Higher scores, more enjoyment for both Advanced and novice players. Not to mention that five balls help compensate for the two that are going to drain right down the left out lane anyway. This game is more than a One-Shot Wonder (spinner), there's a lot of points in the other targets on this game, and a few more balls just makes it easier to milk those shots. Just saying.

The thing I hate about the way it WAS.. Was that I found myself doing two things and only two things:

1) Lock balls left and right, then go nuts until down to one again

2) Do NOTHING other than try to sweep drops and rip the spinner

I agree, there's much more to Shuttle than just the spinner but I find in a 3 ball game with factory settings I'm more or less focusing on that one thing and really crushing the overall fun factor of the machine. Not sure if 5 balls is the answer but I'm going to roll with it for a while.

Another fun way to shake things up is to make new challenges for yourself. Like, collect all shuttle awards or spell shuttle 3 times.

The elephant in the room that we're not taking into account is the luck Factor. My machine is on the factory presets except for five ball play. Top four scores on the leaderboard are all over 5 million, but each of those scores was because of one really good ball. I'm talking, 3500000 to 4500000 by the end of Ball 2. At the end of the day those scores mean nothing when the next three or four balls choke almost instantly. I keep coming back to it because I know if I play it enough, eventually I'll string a couple of those good balls together on the same game. Unfortunately, the first rule of ShuttleClub is ,"you can't have two good balls in a row."

My thing is, I like to try to get a 3-ball multi-ball in 5 shots or less when starting any given ball.

You must be a pretty optimistic person, to be able to put," there's smoke coming out of the head" and " we're mostly in good shape" in the same post. Best of luck with it.

On the 3 vs 5 discussion... mine plays fast and mean about can be pretty brutal (especially for guests) so I keep mine on 5.

Yeah I'm not sure if it's the hardtop or what (I've never actually played a non-hardtopped shuttle) but mine seems...idk. Irritating? On 3ball. Not sure if it's that it's 'mean' or if it's something else, but first impressions on 5 ball, it seems more enjoyable. Maybe I do just suck

In the immortal words of one Mr. Steve Richie....: "Play BETTER!"

In all seriousness tho. Shuttle was my first pin and restoration back in fall 2014. Got the playfield smoothed and cleared with Varathane (hardtops were 4 years away from existing then). I had it set to 3 ball, factory settings, middle outlane posts, and could barely crack over 2 mil on a typical game thru the following year.I think I finally had a random monster game that put me in the 3.5ish range.

So in 2016 I took it to Louisville Expo, and during the setup day one of the guys in town exclusively for the PAPA tournament asked if he could play it. He promptly - having never touched or seen *MY* particular Shuttle before that moment - put nearly 6 mil on it, and still wasn't overly pleased with his score ha ha. I was beyond astounded... but watching him play taught me so much! He graciously shared shared a few tips and pointers, demonstrating them in another playthrough, so afterward I set out to improve my play and use his tricks and while I still am not an all-around excellent player (I can confidently hold my own midpack near A/B cutoff in a tourney but that still gets you nowhere, bah)... all my Shuttle high scores are well beyond the defaults now and have been for years. I think I cracked 6.5 once? I know my wife even did 5 on a fluke monster game and I beat that a couple times later on. Nowadays If I *don't* approach 3 mil on a typical game, that's a bad round now, not a good one.

All still on 3 ball, factory settings, outlane posts in middle (neither "open" nor "closed"): same as it's been since Day One.

This has been true of all my games. Keep playing and scores you initially considered "great" will become embarrassing in due time.

Yeah, I know that's the short answer for sure. Maybe it's just because I have enough variety that I can just move on down the row to a different game when Shuttle pisses me off, but I don't seem to really ever get much better at it.

Granted, I'm by no means a 'good' pinball player. Probably average-ish / better than a casual but not by that much. I'm certainly not the type to be playing in tournaments.

I'm okay with not being able to routinely post 3mil+ games on 3ball, it just seemed strange to me that not only have I only cracked 2 mil a handful of times, but even the Papa video, which LOOKS well-played, only hit 2.1mil. Made me wonder. I'm SURE people can hit absolutely bonkers scores by juicing the spinner and just hammering away. I've heard similar about my Cactus Jack's: hit the left ramp over and over and over and you'll have an insane score. Granted *I* can't repeatedly make that shot and that's why my high score is 18.XXmil and not 999mil, but I'd never play it that way anyway.

I'd much rather hit a good variety of shots around the table and really explore its programmed features, even if it means a lower score, than play any machine on one or two exploitable game-breaking shots repeatedly.

If I'm wrong about shuttle re:spinner and there's a way realistically to get super high scores without that being the lone/primary focus, I'd love to know!

So here's a tip in regards to extra ball bonuses.Not mentioned on the scorecard or anywhere in the manual. When you max out the USA bonus and the light extra ball comes up on the ramp and then you max out your drop Target bonus to light extra ball on the ramp,before claiming the USA extra ball, you will not receive two extra balls. This just sucks and seems like something that could be addressed in the settings menu, although if it is I'm not aware of it. Just never seemed right to me. Just something to be conscious of when you're grinding on a good ball.

Well, I learned something today. I didn't realize that the outlane posts were adjustable.
They were set at the 2nd easiest position. No more! Now, both are in the easiest position. There were dimples for these positions & the harder positions--it looks as if this machine never had its posts adjusted.
I'm blazing new territory!

We'll see if this improves my mediocre scores...

Thanks,
-Jason

Just joined the club yesterday. My service buttons are shot. Missing buttons, half disconnected, no screws, etc. On the bright side she plays very well. Anyone know where I can get a replacement? All online stores are showing “out of stock.” Closest i came was a French eBay auction from 2018.

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Don't trust the French, just kidding. Welcome aboard. Have you tried Marcos, pinball life, pinball resource?

2/3. Forgot about pinball resource

I went down to play and I wasn't coming up without a high score 3,671,400 3 balls no extra balls.